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Everything Folk.Tue, 04 Apr 2017 13:58:54 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.9Art Basel shows Filipino artworks at par globallyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/folkerie/~3/r_E2PVvPE1c/
http://folkerie.com/2015/03/art-basel-shows-filipino-artworks-at-par-globally/#respondWed, 25 Mar 2015 06:51:17 +0000http://folkerie.com/?p=379HONG KONG—A red flag looks like that of a communist party at a distance. It has a sickle and, instead of a hammer, a wine glass. It was the work of London-based Filipino artist Pio Abad.

Modern and contemporary art of Art Basel Hong Kong came in different forms and concepts that without looking at the artists’ names, one would not know which country they represent.

“What makes an artwork Filipino is because the artist is Filipino,” said exhibitor Rachel Rillo at Silverlens galleries of the Philippines and Singapore that featured Abad’s works.

Art is becoming global, she said, adding that the flag was a satire and a contemporary art dialogue, along with a Hermes scarf painting of the same artist.

Displaying at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on March 15-17 were over 230 galleries from 37 countries, half of which are found in Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Their artworks varied in sizes, from huge canvases hanging from the ceiling to small used paint tube caps scattered like dots on white walls.

Pio Abad’s flag is a satire of a communist party flag, says Rachel Rillo of Silverlens. PHOTO BY Lorie Ann Cascaro

Highly conceptual

Artinformal, another gallery from the Philippines featured Nilo Ilarde’s “faulty landscape,” a collection of salvaged objects such as small paint tubes, tube caps, and brushes. On its fourth year at the international fair, the gallery chose Ilarde because his work was “highly conceptual with a very strong statement,” said its creative director, Tina Fernandez.

Nilo Ilarde’s Faulty Landscape PHOTO BY Lorie Ann Cascaro

The Drawing Room Gallery of the Philippines displayed Gaston Damag’s “Shadows of civilization,” using wooden sculptures that symbolize an Ifugao rice god called “bulol” as a proposal of art. “There’s no message at all. I don’t pretend. It’s all about art,” he explained.

The gallery tends to work with specific pools of artists, who are critical in the sense that their works are also a part of their daily life and cultural conditions, said its curator Siddharta Perez.

Gaston Damag (left) says his “Shadows of Civilization” is a proposal for art. PHOTO BY Lorie Ann Cascaro

The three galleries have joined the art fair for several years and placed their artists in the map.

But, unlike Rillo, Fernandez cannot say that Filipino artists have reached global standards in terms of quality of works as they need to improve more. “Local artists should read up what’s happening around the world and attend fairs to see what’s out there,” she added.

Typical commercial art fair

On the other hand, an artist does not need to join international events to excel and be known globally, said Gaston Damag, who was on his second time to join the fair. In fact, it can be a disadvantage to be in “a typical commercial art fair,” he said.

“If you’re not careful, you can be eaten like a small piece of meat,” he said, adding that an artist has to hold a strong position to be less eaten by the commercial aspect of the fair.

Galleries from the Western countries aimed to expand their reach in the Asian region, such as the Richard Gray Gallery located in Chicago and New York.

“We made new clients each year,” said Paul Gray, one of the partners of the gallery.

Hong Kong is a sophisticated city, he said, but it does not have some of the things that make up a great art scene in Western cities. “But, it’s obvious that it’s moving in that direction,” he added.

Over 60,000 people from all over the world visited the fair.

Some 60,000 people from all over the world visited Art Basel Hong Kong this year at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. PHOTO BY LORIE ANN CASCARO

Inkling of aesthetics

Citing that most of the visitors were widely exposed to art and galleries, Rillo said Filipino art enthusiasts do not take much to be at par as they have an inkling of aesthetics.

However, Fernandez said Filipinos need more education to have deep understanding on art, especially the people in the government to give more focus on it.

She hopes that the government will make things easy for the private sector in facilitating and building more venues for art promotion. “Just make things easy for us,” she said, adding that they are being taxed on Philippine artworks brought back from international exhibitions.

First time to see Art Basel Hong Kong, Filipino private art collector Andrew Benedicion expressed his bias with the Art Fair Philippines, a major exhibition of modern and contemporary Philippine visual art.

Although the artworks in Art Basel were nice, he said, it is “very generic looking.” The lighting in the halls were bright and the white walls of every booth drenched the entire space, creating a sense of monotony.

Benedicion likes the gritty effect of the Philippines’ fair that was held inside a carpark with darker lighting.

This also explains why he still wants to collect Filipino artworks besides being a Filipino. It is the raw and gritty feel of Philippines contemporary art that appeals to him.

This and the following years will be eventful for us folkies. Who wouldn’t be excited to have a bunch of singer-songwriter movies coming our way? The first one out, from director John Carney who gave us the award-winning movie Once, was well-received by viewers. Begin Again stars Keira Knightley as a musician left on her own in the big city who meets a disgraced record executive played by Mark Ruffalo. “From this chance encounter emerges an enchanting portrait of a mutually transformative collaboration, set to the soundtrack of a summer in New York City.” (The Weinstein Company) Watch the trailer below.

In the next film we’ll see Anne Hathaway, but in a non-singing role. It features folk musician Johnny Flynn as a, well, folk musician. I am both curious and delighted because…Johnny Flynn, and I’ve never seen him act yet. The trailer for Song One below.

This last clip is not a trailer, yet it may well be a preview of the coming Hank Williams biography I Saw the Light. We all know Tom Hiddleston is a talented actor who can do pretty much eveything we want him to: sing, dance, do impersonations, read poetry. Then he showed up at Wheatland Music Festival and sing Move It On Over by Hank Williams. He’ll have to work on a lot of things for this role, like the accent, singing style, and mannerisms. Otherwise, fans of Williams will butcher him. We hope his talent for impersonation won’t disappoint.

The first time I listened to this album, it felt like I was living in the 50s. Well I’m a Parmesans newbie so I didn’t know what to expect. To describe this band and their music in one word would be difficult though not impossible. But as luck would have it, I’m relieved of that burden. This bio from their website expresses what they are perfectly!

The Parmesans are a string trio from San Francisco, California. Part contemporary folk, part alternative country, sort of blues and not quite bluegrass, their music centers on vocal harmony supported by arrangements for acoustic guitar, mandolin, double bass and trumpet.

Running out of Bon Iver tracks? Then add The Careful Ones to your playlist.

An indie-folk band from Lakeland, Florida, The Careful Ones are Joshua Robinson, Benji Bussell, Steele Strader, Stephen Howell and Jon Santana. So far they have released one album from 2011 (Moths, Flames, Etc.) and two singles.

]]>http://folkerie.com/2014/09/the-careful-ones/feed/0http://folkerie.com/2014/09/the-careful-ones/Edward S. Curtis – Photography & Filmhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/folkerie/~3/PIlPqq3o5fM/
http://folkerie.com/2014/08/edward-s-curtis-photography-film/#respondThu, 28 Aug 2014 06:49:02 +0000http://folkerie.com/?p=327Edward S. Curtis was a renowned photographer and documenter of Native American life in the early 20th century. His works, which include more than 40,000 photographs, are still widely used in different print and digital media: in books, web articles, even music album covers, that those not familiar will have at one time or another seen one. In addition, and this I’ve only recently found out, he’s also directed a 65-minute silent film on the Kwakiutl tribe in 1914 called In the Land of the Head Hunters.

According to Curtis, his ambition was to photograph “The Vanishing Race.” He therefore embarked upon a thirty year undertaking to document Native American Indian cultures within the immensely ambitious project titled The North American Indian. This comprised of a set of 20 volumes of ethnographic text illustrated with photo-engravings from his glass plate negatives.

By 1930 the modest popularity of Curtis’ work had diminished and the North American Indian Corporation, the business enterprise overseeing his ethnographic ventures, soon liquidated its assets. When he died in 19 October 1952, his lifework with Native American Indians had all but faded into obscurity. “Rediscovered” in the 1960s and 1970s, Curtis’ photographic work is now recognised as one of the most significant records of the Native American Indian culture ever produced.

Good Morning, Taka! is on August 30, Saturday, from 10 am – 1 pm. It will be in a small garden at the second floor of Crossroad Center in Quezon City. The exact address is #77 Mother Ignacia Avenue (in the scout area). Regular registration fee of PhP 700/head is until August 28. After that, registration fee will be at PhP 1,000/head. Fee includes the raw taka, painting materials and delightful taka colors-inspired snacks.

To register, send an email to fun@quriocity.org or PM Quriocity, the workshop’s organizer, in their official Facebook page.

Below are excerpts from Quriocity’s email:

Some months ago, our team went to the town of Paete, Laguna to visit our local paper mache artists… In this trip, I and two members of Team Quriocity walked the streets of the peaceful and friendly neighborhood of the town central. Armed with an open-mind to discover something new and an excitement to mingle with the locals, we were exhilarated by the spirit of the paper mache craft, known as “taka.” Sure it wasnʼt our first time to see these artful products, but to witness them generously lined up in quaint shops and even visit the nooks and quarters where they unassumingly lay sent us signals of a deeper sense of appreciation for this iconic art. We found a treasure thatʼs been under-celebrated for all the beautiful things it should have flaunted all these years – its colors, its vibrancy, its sturdiness, and all its careful details that have been handmade with love… During that trip, we couldnʼt believe how we have stumbled upon a treasure relatively hidden in terms of cultural richness and depth. Itʼs there but it does not rightfully thrive as, for instance, the origami does in the hands of the Japanese. To date, very few Filipino artisans are left to nourish and continue the art of taka.

The taka that we have is mostly horses (though one can find also some other animals, traditional models of Filipinos from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, and unique Philippine fruits and vegetables). Itʼs been said that paper mache as a form of art carries the traditions and culture of a community. Any good guess why ours which originated more than a hundred years ago was mainly horses? History certainly must have some answers as to what the horses symbolized then. But you might wonder why in a way it did not largely evolve to anything else. We wonder too. In our course of research, here are some things we found out:

Paper mache originated in the second century AD in China which is also where paper originated.

Because of early trade, this art soon reached the different parts of the world. Many places in Europe helped popularize it.

In the much earlier times, even helmets of soldiers were paper mache!

“Paper mache” literally means “chewed paper.” Now we leave that to your playful imagination and think whether that could have been literal.

Maltese paper mache is still widely celebrated to this day!

Worldwide, paper mache has taken various forms such as furniture, architectural models and even outdoor pieces.

Its wide array of forms and uses have led paper mache artists to the discovery of a variety of paste ingredients such as resin, rice flour, garlic, tobacco leaves, cinnamon, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and mashed potato…yum? Fortunately for us, our adhesive agents and other forms of glue have evolved over time.

It reached its peak by the end of the 19th century. Any guess why?

But check this link out. Itʼs never what it is or how it began, but always the potential of something. Have fun here! www.papelmache.es

]]>http://folkerie.com/2014/08/good-morning-taka/feed/0http://folkerie.com/2014/08/good-morning-taka/Help Raise Funds for The Ballad of Shirley Collinshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/folkerie/~3/tLidKMGvDAU/
http://folkerie.com/2014/07/help-raise-funds-for-the-ballad-of-shirley-collins/#respondTue, 15 Jul 2014 10:32:26 +0000http://folkerie.com/?p=309A Kickstarter campaign has been started by Burning Bridges & Fifth Column Films to make a feature documentary called The Ballad of Shirley Collins. The film will be a lyrical response to the life and works of Shirley Collins who was a central figure to the folk revival of the 60s, and 70s. As of this writing, £18,663 has been pledged with 7 days left to reach their £25,000 goal.

About the Film

Partly inspired by her beguiling autobiography America Over the Water, the film will retell the tale of the famous song-collecting trip she took around the Deep South of America with legendary field-recordist Alan Lomax – a trip on which they uncovered and documented the music that would later inspire the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou.

But the real story is more fascinating than the myth. We will blend the story of the trip with a celebration of her role in the folk revival of the 50s, 60s and 70s, when – amongst many other achievements – she and her sister Dolly produced the era’s most defining monuments in their seminal albums Anthems in Eden and Love, Death and the Lady. Largely forgotten outside hardcore folk circles due to her enforced absence from the world stage, the film will also reclaim Shirley and her sister’s contribution to music for posterity.

]]>http://folkerie.com/2014/07/help-raise-funds-for-the-ballad-of-shirley-collins/feed/0http://folkerie.com/2014/07/help-raise-funds-for-the-ballad-of-shirley-collins/On the Lao side, Naga fireballs remain…http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/folkerie/~3/-CAYyFP2l08/
http://folkerie.com/2014/02/on-the-lao-side-naga-fireballs-remain/#respondWed, 19 Feb 2014 01:18:41 +0000http://folkerie.com/?p=297People swarm into a small village in Vientiane to see the Naga fireballs themselves despite others’ belief that the phenomenon is but a legend.

VIENTIANE, Laos (MindaNews / 24 Octet) – Somewhere around 7 p.m., visitors and the villagers of Pakngum in Vientiane see hundreds of golden lanterns rising slowly beyond a full moon from Thailand’s Nong Khai province. Between Laos and Thailand, where the Nam Ngum and Mekong rivers converge, an intermittent exchange of fireworks conveys the people’s excitement at seeing the Naga fireballs shoot up from the deep recesses of the river.

Locally known as “bangfai paya nak” and described as pinkish-red fireballs, they surge like rockets every Boun Ork Phansa at the end of Buddhist Lent, says Mr. Khamphuan Bouthsingkham, 65, who was the village’s chief 13 years ago, speaking in an interview hours earlier. He says that according to their ancestors, the Naga festival has been a 400-year-old celebration above and “under” the Mekong. “While the human world holds a festival with boat races and fireworks, the Nagas underwater create fireballs to honour the Buddha,” he explains.

Buddhists believe the Nagas are servants of Buddha in the form of water snakes residing in the Mekong River. As Mr. Khamphuan imagines, they resemble the structures of dragon-like snakes with golden and green bodies found in the four corners of a small tower inside the compound of the village’s Vat Pra That Yadee Sama Khee Tham Thin Soy. Built in 1570, the temple has a 500-year-old stupa sitting about 50 meters from the riverbank. He points out that the Naga visited the stupa 30 years ago as people discovered its tracks from the riverbank.

The Naga also took a human form, Mr. Khamphuan continues. Sometime in 1978 or 1979, a novice monk crossed the Mekong to Thailand before the Naga fireballs appeared and bought two boxes of powder used to make explosives. The young monk has since disappeared, but people believe he was the Naga who used the powder to make fireballs.

The young Khamphuan saw fireballs rapidly emerging from the water and rising up past a big tree before they disappeared. He grew up in a traditional house which is a hundred footsteps away from the confluence of the two rivers. “They came out right from the centre,” he says, and points to an imaginary line in between the two flows. The water from the Nam Ngum is greyish green with a steady flow, while the one from the Mekong is brown and fast.

He has never seen the Naga, but a village fisherman did see it some years ago. Mr. Khamphuan tells Vientiane Times that on the day of the festival, the man’s fishing net caught something heavy. Instead of pulling it up, the man was pulled into the river. Thought to be dead by his family and neighbours, the man emerged on the third day after his disappearance and told them about an underwater festival. He was sent back to tell the villagers to honour the Naga by refraining from fishing on Buddhist days, and practicing the precepts of Buddhism such as not telling lies.

The villagers’ strong belief in the Naga and Buddhist teachings might have influenced the emergence of the fireballs. Mr. Khamphuan’s 99-year-old father, Mr. Thit Saun Bouthsingkham, says he saw hundreds of fireballs coming out of the river during his younger years. The only one left of his generation, this toothless old man narrates his earlier encounters with the fireballs. He says he could not touch them as they rose so quickly into the sky and there were hundreds of them coming out from the sides of his boat. But, as the environment changes and people’s belief fades, the fireballs seldom show up, he explains.

His granddaughter, Ms. Lounee, 28, says she has seen fireballs every year for as long as she can remember. Her two children, a one-year-old and a five-year-old, also saw them last year, she adds. While decorating banana stems with flowers, candles and incense sticks that would be floated on the river later, she says “I expect to see them again tonight,” and smiles broadly.

But 13-year-old Jonas Onthavong from the distant village of Khosaath, who has been visiting Pakngum every year for the festival, has never seen any fireballs. He says he was too busy talking or playing with his friends and didn’t really care about them. Asked whether or not he believes they are real, he looks at the river and scratches his head with his left hand. “Ha-sip, ha-sip (50-50),” he says dismissively.

As the night darkens, everyone waits to see real Naga fireballs while drinking Beerlao and eating tam-mak-houng (papaya salad). Amid whistling firecrackers, a sailing boat loaded with some bubbly locals entertains the hovering crowd on the Lao side of the river. Hours pass as fireworks and flying lanterns continue to amuse the watchers’ eyes. Until, a red light, like a laser point, appears and rises over the silhouette of the dark part of Thailand’s shore. It is too dark and far to figure out if it emerges from the river. The people who see it gasp in awe as the light quickly disappears. A few minutes later, another one appears, coming from the same direction as the first. More people are now looking in the same direction, waiting for another red light to rise. The third one rises after a longer wait. And who knows, how many more red “fireballs” rise that night.

Last year, many fireballs appeared the day after the festival when there was less noise along the river, Mr. Khamphuan says, adding that the more visitors there are, the fewer fireballs are seen.

But, the existence of the Naga fireballs remains controversial. Online articles try to provide scientific explanations on how the fireballs could be formed but until then they remain theories. For example, American writer Bryan Dunning said during his weekly podcast, Skeptoid, in 2009 that the “scientific” explanation of the Naga fireballs “is not very scientific at all.”

Dunning argued that there are “two fatal flaws” with the hypothesis that the decomposition of organic matter in the riverbed produces methane gas, which bubbles to the surface, have caused the fireballs. He said “methane can only burn in an oxygen environment within a specific range of concentrations” and “requires the presence of phosphine combined with phosphorous tetrahydride, whose needed proportions are unlikely to be found in nature.” But, he added that even if such conditions did exist in the Mekong, “the combination of oxygen, methane and phosphorus compounds burns bright bluish-green with a sudden pop, producing black smoke” and “under no conditions does it burn slowly, or red, or rise up in the air as a fireball.”

Some people have tried to solve the mystery or prove that the phenomenon is a mere fraud. In 2002, a Thai TV programme showed how soldiers were found on the Lao side firing tracer bullets to produce what those from the other side of the river saw as the fireballs.

Meanwhile, whether or not the red fireballs that people have seen in recent years are actually firecrackers discreetly set off to attract tourists does not matter for Mr. Khamphuan. “Why should I care about those stories when I saw the fireballs myself?” Nevertheless, as long as there are still people like the Bouthsingkhams who hope to see them every Ork Phansa, the festival will continue to draw visitors to small villages like Pakngum and let them get to know its humble people.

[Lorie Ann Cascaro of MindaNews is one of the fellows of the FK Norway (Fredskorpset) exchange programme in partnership with the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists. She’s currently in Laos and hosted by the Vientiane Times.]

Who are the indigenous and folk artists of the Philippines? Guardians of Tradition is full of facts about 11 of Philippine master weavers, folk musicians, performing artists, mat weavers and metal smiths whose talents and skills have earned them the title Manlilikha ng Bayan. Designed to help children recognize native Filipino ingenuity and creativity, the book includes fun activities to promote appreciation for culture and arts. Guardians of Tradition has a fun and colorful design that appeals to young readers.

Join Banog and Kiko as they discover the Philippines’ National Living Treasures: Wang Ahadas, Hadja Amina Appi, Ginaw Bilog, Federico Caballero, Lang Dulay, Masino Intaray, Salinta Monon, Eduardo Mutuc, Alonzo Saclag, Darhata Sawabi, and Samaon Sulaiman. Read about these people’s dedication to their craft and the tradition of their forebears.